Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at
5:28 pm
Its time for another installment of Gorilla Link Love. Here are some of my favorite posts from around the blogsphere this week
ReadWriteWeb posts some great tips on using twitter for your social media needs.
DoshDosh provides information on how to expand your blog’s reach in 2008 and beyond.
And probably the most entertaining post or series of posts I’ve read this week was from ontempo on how to launch your stardom into the blogsphere. While I found it very entertaining there are some decent tips that you could use to help build your blog prescience. If you have a fairly new blog or may be thinking about starting a new one then you may want to check this out.
Technorati tags: blogging, gorilla links, doshdosh, readwriteweb, launching a blog
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at
8:12 pm
One of the blogs I read regularly is ReadWriteWeb. I mainly read this blog because the authors are usually way ahead of the bell curve when it comes to issues around the web. They published a story today talking about the coming privacy issues and war that they predict will occur as result of those issues. Well doh, This has been coming for a long time. Its just made headline news with the recent busting of companies such as Facebook and Sears doing some fairly interesting items with user’s data. Perhaps this type of stuff has been done all along its just that now they are getting caught.
As long as there is money to be made on the web( which will be forever) then people will try to gain a competitive advantage through the use of data. Imagine an advertising system where a visitor was instantly identified when they visited a site and data was analyzed on their past purchasing history. Then the site layout was modified dynamically to similar layouts of sites where you have made purchases previously. Or certain ads where shown to you for products you where likely to purchase based on what you purchased before.
It does not take a brain surgeon to figure it if one could figure it out 
that this would be some powerfully effective advertising and conversions would definitely increase.
Now we are not quite there yet, mainly because companies do not have enough data and the database apps are not efficient enough to find it quick enough for the billions and billions of records such a system would need to process to make correct decisions, but we may be before long.
With the advent of more high level programming languages for web applications such as Asp.Net and Web services, this type of application becomes more of a reality. How much would Advertiser’s pay to own such an application. Well its safe to say who ever builds it won’t have to work again nor will their children or their children’s children. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and definitely Facebook and Sears would be beating down your door begging for a meeting.
Well enough of my rambling, but this is some interesting food for thought. I may have to start working on picking up my programming skills a little more. Well a lot more because while I can envision such a system, I definitely am not qualified to write one. I would not even know how to start to develop the ERD for the database and I aced the database classes in college.
Monday, December 31st, 2007 at
8:03 pm
In the spirit of the new year, I thought I would start off the year with a series post. This will be several part series on finding your own blog voice and how the A-List bloggers can teach you to find it without even knowing they are showing you. I had originally only planned on making this a single post, but as I got into it I realized in a single post this is going to be way too long.
I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing various blogs around the web. As a member of Entrecard just as a side benefit you find yourself on a lot of blogs with a lot of different types of content. These niches range from making money to personal blogs to humorous blogs as well as quite a few others. At first I considered this a waste of my time, but the longer I spend with this system the more similarities I see, but also I see a lot of differences. The main differences do not come from the content as a lot of it is good, but in the technical expertise of the various bloggers. Some bloggers are quite astute when it comes to the technical side of things such as SEO, web design, traffic generation( well sort ) and some don’t have a clue about the technical side but are very good writers. Some think they have a clue even when they don’t and this goes for both sides of the equation.
But neither of these items are the similarity I’m referring too. I’m referring to the raising of hands screaming at the A-List bloggers saying hey look at me. Some of these blogs do this so much that its hard to figure out what the blog is actually about. Some of these are quite amusing such as Not John Chow’s John Chow is Dead post I’ve been guilty of linking to some of John Chow’s or Darren Rowse’s posts in the past and I will again, but not for the point of begging either of them for attention. Did do it for the trackback link
I read both these bloggers almost every day because sometimes there are some decent tips to gain knowledge about blogging. A lot of these tips come from the Guest Bloggers and not the actually author of the blog. But still you have everyone saying hey John look at me, I’m so special if you would just look and give me a link then I’ll be great just like you. One thing is certain if you want his attention then pay him $400 bucks for a review and then he will pay you some attention. You can determine this for yourself if you look at the number of paid reviews posted in the past month. The one thing I find missing from John’s blog is actual good information you can use to build your own blog. Some people say the same thing about Darren and Problogger. Of Course John does not beat around the bush in this area. After all the title of his blog is I make money by telling other people how much money I make. He never says he is going to help to teach you to make money like he makes. Sure there are tips on the blog, but not actually how he does it. John says he made 27K in November. Whether you believe him or not is up to you.
Lets look at that number a little bit. The top four money makers follows:
Private Ad Sales: $12,854.84
Affiliate Commissions: $6,579.67
ReviewMe: $4,400.00
Text Link Ads: $2,012.66If you add this up you will get $25,847.17 or the majority of his money. With the most coming from Private Ad sales, but I’ve never seen anywhere on his site information on how to attract advertisers, well not directly. The second best earner is from Affiliate commissions. I would guess a lot of the commissions come in the form of commissions from other bloggers who have signed up under John in some tiered structured payout program such as WidgetBucks or Bidvertisor. John does post Affiliate links in posts so part of this probably also comes from those links.Now I have no doubt that John is very successful at what he does and how he does it, but is it more important to act just like John or find another way to gain attention. You don’t need John’s attention you need the attention of your readers. After all if I was going to pick someone to emulate then I would copy ReadWriteWeb, I bet if John would tell you who he wanted to be like then that may be one of the sites he wished he could become like.
Well tune in tomorrow for the next installment. You may want to subscribe so you don’t forget and miss it. Where we analyze Darren Rowse and maybe even get closer to the point of finding your own voice for your blog. For now take a look at both of the Year in Review posts from John Chow and ProBlogger. As they will help set the tone for the rest of this series. While you are at Problogger you may want to check out some of the posts about what was done to improve your blog in 2007. These are all posts from other people and there are some really great tips. My favorite is how to Improve your blog with networking but in all the entries are some great food for thought.
Technorati tags: blogging, John Chow, Darren Rowse, problogger, money makers, widgetbucks, readwriteweb, affliate marketing, bidvertiser
